This type of equipment is used in particular sports, such as fencing and martial arts, for detecting when contact occurs between the contenders, the contender that makes the contact usually scoring a point.
At the same time, this equipment must serve the function of protecting the sportsperson from contact or hits. Said equipment usually comes in the form of, inter alia, chest guards, helmets, gloves or foot protectors.
The equipment according to the present invention is especially suitable for the competitive practice of martial arts, and more particularly taekwondo, though the invention is not necessarily limited to this application.e use of electronic protective equipment has changed the way in which competitive sport is practised. Judges consider any contact detected by the equipment to be valid, and as such, competitors have changed their strategy to make contact in a manner that can be detected by the equipment and converted into a subsequent score signal, even if these hits did not originally merit a score according to the rules of that sport.
WO200711145 discloses equipment of this type, specifically a chest guard, comprising two protective layers between which a piezoelectric sensor is positioned.
A problem with this type of equipment is that it detects a frontal hit and simple brushing against the equipment in the same way, the associated signals being indistinguishable. As a result, the equipment detects and transmits a score in either event. However, brushing against the opponent may not, in principle, be an objective of the sport.